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Jennions Group - Behavioural and reproductive ecology

What do we do? We are interested in whole organism evolutionary biology, especially the evolution of behavioural and morphological reproductive traits.

label Research theme

About

We are a happy and extremely productive research group. We place a strong emphasis on creating a friendly working environment. If you thrive best in a winner takes all setting then we are not for you. If, however, you enjoy biology, like working with animals and find evolution fascinating then read on. We value and strive for research excellence. Ultimately scientists are evaluated on what they publish - avoid the hype and just check out our publications. If you are considering Honours, a PhD or Post-doc and want to produce high quality work with a view to pursuing a career in biology then please get in touch.

What do we do? We are interested in whole organism evolutionary biology, especially the evolution of behavioural and morphological reproductive traits. Our main focus is testing sexual selection theory. The kinds of questions we ask are:

  • Is there a trade-off between diets that maximize mating as opposed to fertilization success?
  • How does inbreeding affect sexually selected traits versus other traits?
  • Why do females mate multiply?
  • What affects the offspring sex ratio?
  • Are males more variable than females in their behaviour?
  • Does winning a fight increase your future likelihood of winning another fight?
  • Are older more succesful because they are more sexually experienced?
  • What determines the rate of sperm production? 

We conduct: behavioural ecology experiments, artificial selection studies, and meta-analysis of literature.

We use: immunological assays, diet manipulations, paternity analysis, and sperm assays.

We have conducted research on: fish, crickets, beetles, fiddler crabs, and humans.

Publications

Publications

Projects

Student intake

Open for Bachelor, Honours, Master, PhD students

Status

Current

People

Members

Group Leader

PhD Student

Chenke Zang

Divisional Technical Assistant (E&E)

Honorary Professor

Honorary Associate Professor

Honorary Senior Lecturer

Visiting Fellow

Divisional Visitor

News

Age is no barrier when it comes to reproducing for male mosquitofish.

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Lauren Harrison, a PhD student in RSB, writes about what it’s like to be a woman in science and the importance of mentoring.

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New research from Australia and Finland could help explain one of nature's strangest quirks - why some animals forego mating to help other animals procreate.

Read the article